Well, I sort of missed the company, so I am back again with yet another diorama and yet another story to tell.

It will be a creepy one and certainly as much insane than Baba Yaga, but yet there won't be any dead person in it.

So I start again by attaching some Duro to wire and to sculpt hands and feet separately.

Then, the head. Actually it's my 5th try.
Sculpting heads is intense and very difficult as far as I am concerned, so the 4 first tries (count one evening for each) would be okay for soldiers drowning under water, but not okay to be shown like this.
yet on the 5th evening I did this : Good enough to be photographed and shown here, but not enough to be included in the scene.

Welcome back! I'll follow this thread

Sounds very interesting (and devoted). Will be looking forward to reading more.

looking forward for your next project....by the way is it going to be SLENDER MAN???

Well , well, your standard of excellency is climbing by the minute i see. Maybe his expression doesn't fit your scene, but the head looks great to me (with a nose who may well fit a Charles de Gaulle head :-) )

Claude

Welcome back Nicolas, great to see you creating again!

Nice start Nicolas. The head looks pretty good to me. Depends on what you want it to portray .... but as we dont have a clue to what you are doing yet, its hard to know.

Good job on the head. The proportions look correct to me but since we don't know the context of the figure within the scene,I can't say more.
I am sure that I will enjoy this thread as much as the last one though!
J

Wow, I sure missed the company
Thank you guys, this is very appreciated and now for a few answers.
Mauro, Karl and Christopher this is a pleasure to see you again.

Kenny, you say "Slender man", it was supposed to be a woman a very slander one indeed

Yep Claude, this face on CDG!! didn't think of that. But I am not this kind of Frenchman you see, I wouldn't sculpt CDG.

Frank, I think it is pure laziness to express myself over what I want to do more than anything else. I just read a post from Doug Lee saying a diorama must be a clear cut story, you know this kind of things. Well I am through that now. A diorama must be something that you FEEL, I don't care if people catch the story as long as they're sort of startled.

Incidentally, this is a portrait I tried to do. The girl I am doing the portrait off would feel like Ripley in front or her "former tries" in Alien 4.
But this one is good enough


next post the body!

Hey Nicolas, Very nice to see you at it again. Your builds are spectacular and a pleasure to watch come together. This one already promises to be just as good. Nice sculpt on the head too.

Thank you Bob! Nice to hear from you again

Well, here is the girl as she was yesterday evening. Just a regular one really, not particularly beautiful nor big. She is the way I wanted her to be -except the neck which seems to be way too thick, maybe a bit of careful sanding on the right side of the face. Any other comments about the sculpting work?..

Pictures

As the shoulders look about the same level, i think that the right arm is longer then the left one!
But don't cut the fingers of now!

Will she hold something in the right hand? Looks a bit strange now.

Claude

I agree that the neck looks a little too thick. It is hard to tell about your figure as the camera is also distorting the shape a little I think.
The front view looks better than the side view. She maybe leans front too much,like an older person plus something bothers me about the shoulders and neck(from the side) but then you are not finished yet.
I think it is coming along nicely,
J

okaay, I should have say "except the arm and the neck"
It broke yesterday after the picture anyway. But yes she is holding a suitcase in her right hand which explain why she is somewhat lower than the other one -even if she wasn't suppose to be THAT low!

[edit] I didn't see your post Jerry! I will correct her this evening and take some new pictures anyway. Yes she definitely leans front like a weary person, but that was on purpose, she doesn't stand looking at something right in front of her, something more like a Thousand Yard Stare, I think with a new neck some of the overall defaults will disapear,

Thanks for noticing!!

Well while the corrections on the girl are drying, on to something I don't really like: model building.

Too much little pieces I didn't even design, in plastic (what on earth I am doing in modelling forums )

on we go, cutting, sanding.. Good quality model but there are some molding marks and this is very tedious to do

Let's get a bit of revenge and cut the heck out of those wheels

And rebuild them on my own way, with a bit of the lower chassis of that soft skin

Really, plastic is not my thing, it is too soft you see. it is too thick for modelmaking. The angles are too soft.
Lead foil is my thing

So here I am, flattening some lead foil over a car bit (can't remember what's the name of the metal thing above the wheel) so that it gets its shape completely

Then I did that on some engine apertures

I strengthened (slightly) the whole with some CA glue and Duro, filled and then sanded some too obvious crevices and in the end I have this: a "perfect" molding of the car bits after having been bend by a quite terrible blow.

Well, on to some old trick. I suppose I should never have regretted giving up smoking 10 years ago, but I shouldn't regret having ever beginning 20 years ago too.
Well, I don't know about my lungs, but when it comes to manipulate cigarette paper, to know about its strength and the possibilities of the material, ah, well this is something I know.

So that's paper


cut and bent on the right dimensions


zip zap and that's a shirt.


on to follow (but I will spare you the pictures) is a pair of trousers, some dress and various clothing items.

Holy crap that's awesome.

I don't know anything about cig paper. How do you join the garment together? White glue? Thanks

You are a far better man than me my friend! I would never have thought of the paper and if I had,I wouldn't have attempted it!
J

Wow, your jobs are always truly inspiring!

i suppose he stitches it for maximum reality, can't be otherwise, or..?

Unbeleviable...clothes from cig paper! And the damaged parts of the vehicle look incredible.

Thanks Conor

yep Anthony, White glue, but that's not the end of it. I have to straighten the cloth as done afterwards (later)

Thanks Jerry, the Japanese are doing some room partitions with paper.. Incredible material. Modellers often think too much through plastic, while there are so many available mediums around..

Thanks Mauro, yes, just have a try.. easy.
have a look at that oldie, all the clothes are done of cigarette paper


Claude you are not that far from the truth, indeed you *have* to put some sort of stitches. On JBA's Sokol dio, all the decorations on the trousers are being done with Duro.
below, there are some trousers, I have been making all the little bits around the belt with Duro as well though that's not shown on the picture.


[edit] hey Karl thanks!! the broken parts should look good once painted. I undercoated those yesterday evening..

Really cig paper is ideal for shirts or any element that is in thin cloth. For trousers I would hesitate. I did it this time because this is a light summer woman trouser. If i were about to sculpt some bluejeans, I would have use Duro.



below a bit of road done of some layers of quite grainy sand gel and some much finer sand gel. i know Vallejo sells this kind of thing, but basically *but the cheapest brand available*, the stuff is just some gel medium with some stuff put in it!
Generally speaking btw, just buy Vallejo *paints* and nothing else from them.
But you can make some damn fine roads when varying the consistency and the thickness of the sand grains

Nicolas,

You, sir, show the level to which our hobby advances to not just craft and technical achievement, but to art! You demonstrate as possible what I have pondered for years if even practical, only to slink away from in defeat before trying. Well done, I look forward to your next installment!